


The Honeydew's And Honeydon'ts of Matchmaking - A Service

by sipsjin



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sipsjin/pseuds/sipsjin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“THE HONEYDEW’S AND HONEYDON’TS OF MATCHMAKING - A SERVICE” There it was, in all of its painstaking glory, crudely written in permanent marker - a sign donning the entrance of the dwarf’s penthouse. A single tear falls down his cheek. (set post-JCF in Tekkit, but pre-FTB/YC - Tekkit characters only)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Honeydew's And Honeydon'ts of Matchmaking - A Service

The pneumatic tubes are completely spotless, Honeydew notes from his position on the Egg Railway Engineering level, the yellow fluorescent lamps warming the back of his trousers. Xephos had put him on cleaning duty the day after they had turned the switch on for the jaffa assembly. (He didn’t blame him, though, the factory was a mess and they all knew it.) There were no jaffa cakes, or, uh, jaffa cakes, making their way down the pipes - the make-do crystal chests already full of the stuff within a matter of days, and Honeydew had previously snuck some into his pockets for later snackage.

With the Jaffa Cake Factory more or less completed, (although they were able to make  jaffas with running services and the fact that Lalna made his face on the side of the building out of lamps - which he admits is pretty high on his ‘Cool-O-Meter’ - they didn’t really have the capability to sustain all of the sugar, bone meal, or the processed cocoa beans) there was nothing left for him to do as CEO. No one else was doing anything in the factory anyway, since Sips and Sjin had decided to go back to working full-time at Sipsco, while Xephos and Lalna were doing their own things. Even if they did have some super special project planned, it’s not like they would tell Honeydew anything about it.

The dwarf was always off and about during their time at the factory, he’ll admit with a sheepish grin; the whole Pig Island, giant head, Jaffahampton, Santa-on-the-Roof thing was pretty interesting in itself, too, okay? Besides, they wouldn’t let him do much at the factory, anyway, more of the simple commands like “make a farm” or “work on the cafes” or “Honeydew, will you _please_ sign the lease for this part of the land, Sips is being all uppity again.” The most he’s ever done was work on the egg-coaster with Lalna, since that’s all he’s really ever learned about anything technical with the word jargon and all. Xephos had gotten frustrated after trying to explain what a Batbox did after the umpteenth time when Honeydew still had failed to understand, and refused to get too deep into explanations other than the simple demonstration now and again. That said, all he did nowadays was clean. And talk to Jarvis, of course. Sometimes he would go up to the roof level and try to replace some of the wool on the Santa statue with appropriate colors since Spring was on the horizon. He always got lazy after the first couple of minutes up in the roof, though he couldn’t help the cold, either!

It is five minutes later, however, when Honeydew decides to get up to go say hello to an old friend. (He says ‘old,’ but really, he saw him the night before when he decided he would sleep back in the shed for old times sake, but it sounds more dramatic when he refers to Xephos as an old friend, so he does it anyway.) They haven’t had a proper conversation in a while, since Xephos was more focused on… whatever he was doing, paperwork? _Xephos liked paperwork, didn’t he?_... but he thinks that if he spends another second doing nothing, he might explode. With boredom. And also pee.

A quick bathroom break is in order, too.

* * *

 

It is his second time checking the rest of the factory to see if Xephos was working on any of the floors before he deactivates his Swiftwolf’s Rending Gale, and lands square on the glass platform that sealed the basement. His knees are quivering a bit, which is expected after falling quite a ways down, but by now he is used to it and quickly regains his balance before scurrying outside to the only other place Xephos could be.

The sign still reads “Honeydew Inc. Domitory 1” and it makes Honeydew sport a quick grin before ducking into the shed. The first thing he notices is that his bed - really, it was four beds placed next to each other, but it was still awesome - was made and pressed neat, despite not making an effort to fix his covers in the morning.

 _Must’ve been Xephos_ , is the thought that crosses his mind next, and his eyes fall upon his friend sitting by the makeshift desk he had laid out earlier that month, the torch on the wall illuminating the dark circles protruding his eyes. The dwarf shuffles up to Xephos, gingerly laying a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, pal.”

What he doesn’t expect is for Xephos to jump at the touch, accidentally set off his flying ring, and hit his head on the ceiling of the shed. (But, then again, this was Xephos he’s talking about. He should have expected it.) There is a touch of forced words when he floats back down into his chair, hands instinctively gripping his wooden pencil, “ _Friend!_ Fancy seeing you here!”

“...In _my_ company shed?” _Maybe_ Honeydew should’ve been the slightest bit suspicious when Xephos laughs nervously and begins to tuck a torn paper into his pocket. _Maybe_ he should’ve let Xephos know that said torn paper wasn’t all the way into his pocket, and if he continued to squirm in his seat, it would’ve fallen out. Of course, he isn’t at all suspicious, because what’s there to be suspicious about? He knows Xephos more than anyone, and he’s sure if something is bothering him, the spaceman would say something about it.

“...Er, yeah. Speaking of which,” Xephos stands up, voice raising an octave higher than per-usual, and the wooden chair scoots backwards, scratching the floor at his abruptness. “I think I’ll have a check on all the facilities in the factory, if you don’t mind. The glitches in the system are almost fixed, can you believe it?” His hands are twitching by his sides and he’s already halfway out the door by the time he gets the last word in.

Except Honeydew knows exactly what state the factory is in and it is no where near to being fixed, but he just assumes that this is something that Xephos and Lalna have been working on behind his back. Or probably in front of his back and he never noticed. Is the front of his back even a thing? He shakes his head to stop the unnecessary thoughts from shrouding his mind, and when he opens his eyes again they are focused on the skid marks on the floor from Xephos’s chair. And the note that had fallen out of his friend’s pocket.

His first instinct is to move towards it.

Everything in his head is screaming at him to let the whole ordeal go.

_But what if it’s really important?_

_**Don’t!** _

His feet are moving by themselves. So are his hands. They grip the folded paper and in neat, telligible scrawl is the familiar name - Lomadia. _Huh, I didn’t know Xephos wrote letters to Lomadia,_ Honeydew muses to himself as he pockets the note, (he isn’t going to open it, of course, that was an invasion of privacy! Who exactly do you think he is?) _I guess I’d better send this out for him; the owl carriers will be here soon, and this is one less thing for him to worry about, eh?_

* * *

 

Honeydew walks back into the Jaffa Cake Factory later, having already mailed Lomadia the letter. He makes a beeline towards the truck that contains all of their stock - or most importantly, his late lunch. The machines would pick up the slack once they realized the chests were no longer at full capacity, anyway, he tells himself to tide his guilty conscience as he by passes all of the faulty jaffas. He owns the whole place! What’s there to feel guilty about?

“ _Honeydew,_ ” a strangled voice says from behind him, and Honeydew quickly shoves the rest of the goods into his pack. A lot, apparently. “Earlier… earlier, when we were speaking, did you see the paper I was writing on?”

He recognizes the voice as Xephos, and he turns on his heel to meet the grim face of his best friend. Honeydew does his best to smile, although the concern weaving through his expression is less than convincing, “Oh, the letter to Lomadia? I put it in the mail for you, stamps and all. Did you know that it took me about five minutes to fi-”

Xephos is twitching. Honeydew stops talking. Xephos is doing breathing exercises. Honeydew is looking for a way out of his current situation.

There is silence now, and he initiates the countdown in his head - _three, two, one…_ “YOU WHAT?!”

He winces, the whole factory shaking at the bellow of Xephos’s voice and then creating an earthquake RIGHT BENEATH THEIR FEET AND CARRYING THEM OFF INTO THE DEPTHS OF THEIR SEALED BASEMENT OF QUARRIES AND FAILED OIL AND FUEL STORAGE!! Or, at least, something like that. Whatever happened, the way Xephos raises his voice and clutches at his hair lets Honeydew know that the question he just asked was very, very rhetorical.

“Where is it now?!” The spaceman is already pacing the stone bricks that make up the factory floor, and Honeydew swears that he’s already wearing the cobble.

“It should still be on the mail perch! Don’t panic, Xeph!” He lifts his arm and reaches out to Xephos, but once he catches sight at the scowl playing on his face, he quickly decides against it. Better not to bother him when you’ve made a mistake, Honeydew. He frowns. Even if you didn’t really understand what the big deal was - _didn’t you do him a favor?_

Honeydew guesses it doesn’t matter, and his index and thumb turn at his flying ring in unease. The familiar ‘bloop’ sound tells him that he still has some fuel left in his pack, enough to keep him going, at least, but not for very long. Time for plan “Escape While You Can!” to come into action. “Fortunately for you, your screaming might’ve scared the owl carrier away! Uh, in the meanwhile, I have to… oil up Jarvis. His joints are creaky, and it makes it very hard to work on filing! Ha, ha, bye Xephos!” Everything that comes out of his mouth is forced and horridly unconvincing - seriously, when had he last _filed_ his own papers? - but it does the trick long enough for him to get the hell out of dodge.

(He prays silently to not run out of glowstone dust mid-flight.)

By the time Xephos reaches the mail perch, Honeydew is already nine floors above him. Even if Xephos fell to his knees after realizing that the mail was taken half an hour ago and screamed to the heavens, he wouldn’t have heard. He couldn’t have. Some things are better that way.

* * *

 

“ _Look_ , Honeydew, I need to talk to you.”

“You’ll never catch me alive, copper!”

“There is literally only a dirt heap keeping you inside there, and I have my sapphire spade right here!”

Okay, so, maybe Honeydew had sealed himself into his penthouse a couple minutes after, hiding from Xephos’s wrath. And, _maybe_ , said seal was made out of dirt. There was a probability that Honeydew was growing out his beard and waiting for it to be long enough so that his knight in shining armor could whisk him away and braid his beard and place pretty flowers in it and they could get married and live happily ever after far, far away from the Jaffa Cake Factory and Xephos. But mostly Xephos. It has been forty-four hours since he has last wandered out of his racecar bed, and he only knows that because he has been carving tally marks into his floorboards.

Honeydew is also on his last couple of jaffa cakes, and he thinks he may starve to death soon. Starving to death only took a few hours, right? Even then, he scoffs. “Who says I’m scared of you?” (He can almost hear a soft snort, along with a mumble of words that sound strikingly similar to ‘says the one who hid in their room for two days straight,’ but Honeydew just pretends that no such thing happened.)

“I’m coming in this time, and you can’t stop me!”

Soon enough, there is a hole being carved into his precious mound of dirt. Honeydew hisses at the action, sitting up in his bed with his duvet wrapped tightly around his frame. He wiggles off of the bed and hides behind it, grimacing in pain. “The light! It _burns_!”

_“The lamps in your room are on!”_

When he looks over the back of his racecar, he sees Xephos strut in like he owns the whole damn place, leaving trails of dirt as he makes way for his bed. What a complete asshole. Xephos is kneeling by his bed to match his height, and Honeydew only grips onto his duvet closer.

“Friend,” he starts off, all too sweetly for Honeydew to fall for that it makes him sick in the stomach - although that might just be all the zombie brains he’s been eating - and the dwarf braces himself for the worst reprimand in the history of Xephos-Reprimands, “about the letter, I just wanted to say-” There is a pause and Xephos’s face turns pale. Honeydew blinks. Xephos blinks. “Wait, wait, wait! Did… did you carve into your floorboards? _What the hell, Honeydew?!_ ”

Suddenly there is obvious displeasure in Xephos’s expression, and he gestures to the scarred floorboard with his hands. Honeydew has a feeling that he should be somewhat worried by his friend’s reaction, but he isn’t very phased. “We just replaced them last month when you thought it’d be fun to throw a party in here and Lalna knocked down the whole refreshment table! _That took us a week!_ Do you realize how hard it is to replace a whole chunk of flooring because of that?! Why did you even carve tally marks into it - you weren’t thinking of spending the rest of your life in here, were you? Great, great, this is flippin’ great! Not only do I have to worry about getting the rest of the factory hooked up, I have to spend time replacing your goddamned floorboards! I -”

Honeydew is busy carving the forty-fifth consecutive tally mark into the floor with the tip of his sword. Xephos looks like he’s going to blow up.

“Are you even paying attention to me?!” He snaps, and Honeydew looks up in a panic.

“Yes! No!” There is a pause of uncomfortable silence that makes the dwarf clear his throat, and sheepishly admit, “No… I kind of tuned your voice out after you started talking about that rad party we had last month.”

It takes all of the patience Xephos has in order to calm himself down. He exhales once more, his eyes fluttering open in newfound peace. “Because of you, Lomadia and I had dinner last night, and she told me that she felt the same way. So, I’d like to say thanks…” His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth as he stands back up straight, a smirk playing at his lips, “Even if you made me a nervous wreck for a day.” The rest of his sentence - _‘if this never happened, you would have been so dead’_ \- never makes it out of his mouth.

Sometime during his whole spiel, Honeydew had put his sword back into its sheath and began to listen to Xephos thank him for a reason he doesn’t totally understand. He looks up at Xephos quizzically - what was he talking about again? He couldn’t have missed much in those two days away from civilization, could he? “I… helped? Helped what, exactly?”

Xephos peers down at him with squinted eyes, before shaking his head with a grin. “Lomadia and I are together now, thanks to your not-so brilliant mix-up with the whole letter thing. Who knew you’d be pretty good at this accidental matchmaking thing, huh?” He is heading back towards the crappily shoveled dirt that guarded his entrance, but he is quick to turn his head last second to add, “...This doesn’t give you an excuse to mail any more of my personal notes, though.”

The only words that make it into Honeydew’s head are _“Who knew you’d be pretty good at… matchmaking…”_ and the slow smile that spreads across his face is in no way diabolical at all. Trust him.

* * *

 

 **“THE HONEYDEW’S AND HONEYDON’TS OF MATCHMAKING - A SERVICE”** There it was, in all of its painstaking glory, crudely written in permanent marker - a sign donning the entrance of the dwarf’s penthouse. A single tear falls down his cheek. This marks the second most important moment in his entire life; the first being when he ate his very first jaffa cake. Nevermind the fact that it was forced, but that is a story for another day.

It has been less than twenty-four hours since Xephos has implanted the idea into his mind, and it wasn’t like Honeydew could stop thinking about it! He put two people together for crying out loud! He has a talent he has to share with the world!

And that’s exactly why he plans to do.

The set up on his floor was pretty fucking swish - thank God Lalna wasn’t working on some sort of big project or else he wouldn’t have been able to start setting up all the computer paneling and connecting it up to the control center or anything - with hi-tech gizmos he’s sure he’s probably not going to use. But it helped him reach that air of professionalism he needed to succeed in his newfound business, and if that meant having a bunch a computers in his penthouse and adding to their many power problems, so be it.

Sips chipped in, too, after he finished laughing about Honeydew wanting to become a matchmaker. (Honeydew may or may not have chucked a few snowballs at him, courtesy of Viva La Freezer Level, but it was all in good fun. He thinks.) There was a weird glint in his eyes while he was working on the programming, but Honeydew passed it off as Sips being Sips.

Here he is now, sitting in his super rad office chair behind his super rad desk with all sorts of business-like things like a pen holder, a solitary plate for all of his jaffa cake needs, and in-trays for forms, all next to his lovely assistant Jarvis. Honeydew put a tie on the iron golem, and everything!

Honeydew had done his bit of advertising, and hung a few flyers. Granted, he only went within the confines of his own land, so he guesses it won’t be of much help. Luckily, Lalna had went to extremes and made a really nice light-up sign on their roof that people would be able to see from afar. Even Xephos helped, begrudgingly, of course, by crafting him a couple more of those Swiftwolf rings and leaving them in a chest down by the entrance way of the factory, entitled appropriately “TO HONEYDEW THE MATCHMAKER & CO.” Normally, he wouldn’t involve himself in anything that sounded remotely schemish by Honeydew, but the dwarf stressed that he was now forever indebted to him. ( _Ah_ , the effort that friends will go to. Maybe he’ll thank them in his autobiography.)

All that’s left to do now is to wait for some customers.

His fingers are creating a steady beat on the surface of his spruce desk.

He swears they’ll come eventually.

* * *

 

Honeydew is going through all the filled out formed in his in-tray - one for Strippin and… his crowbar?, one for Benji and squids, ( _seriously,_ when did those two jokers even visit the factory?) surprisingly four for Xephos, one for Sips… and himself, and the last one being Sjin and his mummy. Probably courtesy of Sips.

He sighs and lays each application side by side on his desk. Let’s go over the options again: a man and an inanimate object, a man and a sea creature, a man who is already taken and would probably kill him if he tried to set him up with anyone else, a man with himself, and a man and his mum.

 _...Huh._ That last one didn’t sound so bad anymore.

His thoughts are interrupted with a bang as something hits the roof of the Computer Control level - subsequently, right beneath his penthouse. It jolts him out of his seat, and his hands are immediately on the shaft of his blade. There is an intelligible matter of obscenities  before a hooded boy floats into the green ring of his entrance.

He looks no older than a young adult; his hair is matted and clinging onto his forehead, and his clothes look completely damp, hugging his frame. What in the - “Uh, hello? Is this the matchmaking service?”

“Er, yeah. Yeah, it is! Can I do anything for you?” The initial shock is replaced with an uncontainable excitement at finally having his first - _real_ \- customer, that Honeydew tries his best to conceal, and he puffs out his chest. (He suddenly feels as though he probably should have worn a suit to match all this professionalism. It was too late now, anyway.) “So… what happened with - “

He motions to the dripping, wet boy. Mostly the wet part.

“I accidentally went into your Decontamination Shower,” the boy admits with a cringe, “four times.”

Honeydew’s eyebrow raises, “ _...Right…_ ”

“I mean, your factory’s huge! ...And I’ve never worn one of these flying rings before, so I didn’t really…”

But before Honeydew could retort that going through the shower four times in an attempt to reach his services is probably pushing it, his customer reaches his hand out with a bashful smile. “I’m Toby, and, uh, I require your services? Is that how this whole thing works?”

One thing led to another and next thing they know, Toby is sitting in a fairly large bean bag chair that seems to be slowly sucking him in and Honeydew is observing from over his desk. Toby pulls at the collar of his hoodie, tapping the end of his pen against the clipboard, and the peeling sound makes Honeydew shift in his chair uncomfortably. (Buy extra clothes in case people go into Decontamination Shower is added to his mental agenda.)

“I’m done, Honeydew.” Toby announces, clearing his throat and standing up from his seat. Honeydew tries to muster a “thanks,” but all of his attention is on the wet mark on the red bean bag chair. He absently wonders if that’ll come out on its own before turning his focus back on the paperwork.

“Littlewood, is it?” Honeydew is biting the insides of his cheeks to stifle his impending grin, eyes flitting back and forth between Toby’s muddied handwriting. He looks up at Toby, examines the paper once more, and back at Toby. His eyebrows knit together and he hums in approval. “I guess I can kinda see it.”

Toby shoots him a quick look that Honeydew almost thinks is a glare, but his expression softens and he shoves his hands into his hoodie pocket. He is kicking at the wooden floor now, and Honeydew almost wants to reprimand him because Xephos will get all over his ass for scuffing the floorboards again, but Toby’s mouth is open and the words are rushed when he says, “So, can you do it?”

“Of course I can!” It is then when Honeydew forgets all of his past worries - the floorboards, the bean bag - and he genuinely beams at his client. He clicks his tongue, voice high and mighty when he proclaims, “I’ll have you know, I successfully set up two people this week alone or my name isn’t Honeydew the Noble Dwaf!”

“Dwaf?”

“There was a typo on my desk nameplate and as a businessman I’m legally Honeydew the Dwaf, so just roll with it, okay? But don’t worry about a thing, my little grasshopper. I’ve got this all under control.”

* * *

 

It took seven hours, sixty-three jaffa cakes, and a lot of napping and mucking around with MS Paint, but Honeydew finally came up with an answer to all of Toby’s problems. The printer churned out the last of his finalized creation - two coupons to Jaffahampton’s Incredibly Exquisite Diner, complete with flashy colored font and even a clip-art dwarf in the corner! - and he cradles his finished product in his arms. It’s signed off to Mr. Toby and Mr. Littlewood of InTheLittleCorp. and Honeydew rests his hands on his hips when the coupons take off into the sky, the messenger birds flying westward.

With the sun setting and there being limited time before the planned dinner, Honeydew pulls down his goggles - borrowed from the One and Only Lal-Minator, of course - and he drags out a large poster and multiple bouquets of roses into the Hot Dog Stand that preoccupied the center of Jaffahampton. It’s all or nothing from here on out.

* * *

 

“I told you _redstone torches_ , not just plain old torches! It sets the mood! And what if the petals catch on fire? You can’t just burn all of my clients, Xephos!”

“Their entire dinner might as well just be petals for crying out loud! Look at the entire fucking place - it’s just petals everywhere! What if they’re allergic or something, you idiot hole?!”

“I… rose petals are romantic, _okay_! The magazine just wasn’t specific on how many rose petals I needed to use.”

Above everything else, the first thing Toby and Littlewood notice is the decoration donning the top of the building. However, adorning the giant hot dog was a pink banner lazily taped on, spelling out, “JAFFHAMPTON’S ENCREDIBLY EXQUEEZITE DINEr.” And not to mention the glitter, - clumps of it, really - spots of the stuff found in every single crevice of the tapered banner. It looked terribly sloppy in the wind, bits of the long poster folding inwards and crinkling its surface.

Then they take in everything else.

Behind them was a frozen fountain, just beginning to melt from the actual stacks of torches surrounding the marble base, making quick work of the thinning snow that tops the gravel walkways. Among the footprints are rose petals detailing the way to the diner, and their feet crunch on top of them. On their sides were two similar buildings - one with a massive teacup… and…. a beer mug? What was that noise coming from it, anyway? At least, something like that. The sounds of yelling and clamoring of plates and silverware, and the _smells_ \- was that a vanilla scented candle? Cinnamon? Chocolate mocha? Death, perhaps? - came last.

Littlewood’s hair is turning back to its shade of golden blonde, but his skin still looks ice pale, a scarf wound tightly around his neck. He nudges Toby in his sides, using a hand to cover his mouth slightly, halfway whispering into Toby’s ear, “Uh, maybe we should just come back another time? Sounds like a lover’s tiff to me.”

This makes Toby snigger into his hoodie, his breath warm against the frosty wind when he says, “Ha, Littlewood. I doubt it.” His hands grip at the bottom of the coupons for the diner, looking wistfully at the building before turning to his friend, lying between his teeth (please work, please work, please work,) “And, er, the coupons are only valid tonight! I hear they’ve got really good pork chops, too!”

It is then that Honeydew emerges from the building, and he makes sure to close the door shut with his rear. His face is a bright red and he is shivering from the cold, but the smile on his face is more than genuine. “Hello! And welcome to Jaffahampton’s greatest diner!”

His eyes dart over to the pair, seeing Littlewood for the first time in all of his prime, and Honeydew gives Toby a confused glance.

“He’s in between seasons,” is all Toby has to say on the matter, shrugging nonchalantly, and Littlewood grins to himself like its some big inside joke. _Weird… but not weird enough to foil my services,_ Honeydew thinks to himself, rubbing his hands together. (Whether evilly or just as a way to provide himself warmth, even he doesn’t know.)

Honeydew lets out another breath, hand enclosing the doorknob to the diner, “Follow me!”

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Indulge yourself with a romantic candlelit dinner with your loved one! Make sure there’s rose petals everywhere, and scented candles are a great plus!**

**DON’T: Do something casual and fun for your first date - movies? The park? They’re not your mom.**

If the outside of the diner was covered in enough petals, there were even more inside. The aroma of sickenly sweet candles is much more stronger, and the two have to plug their noses as they make their way to the solitary table in the center of the room. The walls are littered in torches, half of them redstone and reflecting a nice ruby red against the rest of the room, while someone is in the process of removing the last of the regular torches, grumbling to themselves.

Honeydew clears his throat.

Xephos moves from his position in the corner of the diner, thrusting the burnt out rods of wood into the dwarf’s arms and walking towards the two. It’s obvious he’s not in the mood for anything by the way he closes his eyes for ten whole seconds before a wide smile finds his face and he just about grits through his teeth, “Hello. I will be your waiter for tonight, how may I help you?”

There is a pause. Toby is antsy in his seat, eyes flickering back between Xephos and Honeydew, and Littlewood seems to be thinking something over.

Littlewood squints, checking Xephos up and down once more. The waiter tries not to notice, playing with the towel on his arm, which Honeydew insisted he needed for his get-up, and he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Finally, he asks, “Why’re you wearing a fake mustache over your mustache?”

This seems to rile Xephos up, and it’s like a human representation of a ticking time bomb when he explodes, “Look, _chump,_ if you’re going to ask questions all night, it’s best if you just leave!”

“ _Xephos!_ ” Honeydew calls, glaring at his business partner. Way to be rude!

Honeydew is sporting his very best puppy-dog face, and Xephos can only sigh in defeat. His hands tousle through his gelled hair, and his cheeks are a faint pink when he hastily apologizes, “ _Right_ , sorry. Sorry. Are you ready to order yet?”

It turns out his patience wears very quickly, however, because just as soon as he calms down he begins to heatedly tap his dress shoes against the checkerboard floor tiles, arms tightly crossed.

“Excuse me, uh, where are our menus?” Toby pipes up.

“...”

Shit.

Xephos and Honeydew exchange worried glances - _“We haven’t thought that far ahead!” “What do we do?!”_ \- and the waiter gulps, “Er, well, you see..”

He’s motioning for Honeydew to leave and get something, anything, really, but all of the hand gestures and head signal towards the door look like they’re playing some game of charades. It takes fifty-eight seconds for the dwarf to realize what he’s doing, and he leaves the building in a hurry with a muffled, “Pardon me,” from beyond the door.

* * *

 

Honeydew comes back a bit later, after Xephos has already tried to entertain the two with a rendition of “Screw The Nether” completely in tenor, with a tray of jaffas and four mugs of Black Stuff in tow. He looks apologetically at Xephos, trying to make his eyes explain, “Pig Island was too far away and these are all we have!” but he isn’t sure Xephos gets the message.

“Order’s up!” Honeydew announces, banging the tray on the white-clothed table. Toby winces at the sound.

“We didn’t order yet…”

“Oh, of course you did! I have it written all on here,” Xephos says quickly, not missing a step to his friend’s antics, though the glare daggers of death are still piercing Honeydew’s side. He motions to the towel on his arm.

Littlewood’s mouth opens to object - that’s a towel, not a notepad - but he slumps into his seat. Maybe he should just enjoy his dinner with Toby.

Honeydew notices this, and he sighs in relief. They catch this, and look up from their dinner with concern for the dwarf. He begins sweating bullets, making an excuse about how it was too hot and that he needed some air, dragging Xephos along behind him.

* * *

 

“W-whose idea wasshhet to have dinner here again?” Toby’s words are slurred, and his vision is blurry and he’s seeing a whole lot of Littlewoods and darkness. He squints. There, just one Littlewood now. Toby smiles in satisfaction, and he places his mug back on the table, a dark ring staining the tablecloth.

They’re both on their second mug of Black Stuff and picking at the remnants of their jaffas. Littlewood scrunches his nose together, racking his head for the answer to the question. The run is slipping out of his stone mug, and he jumps up in his seat. “You! You said we got coupons and said wesshould check it o-out.”

Toby laughs, remembering now, “Oh. Yeah, right!”

Honeydew shuffles inside the building again, grunting as he hands the two their receipt for their dinner. They don’t have time to make quick conversation before he’s gone, and the gust of wind that floats through the closing door makes them shiver in their seats.

“Saaaay, Littlewood…” Toby starts up, fidgeting at the hem of his black hoodie.

“I like you.”

Toby blinks. There is a shocked gasp from somewhere outside, bushes rustling and letting a draft in. He hears a faint mumble of, “plot twist!” and Littlewood cranes his neck to see through the gaping hole in the wall he’s sure wasn’t there before, but Toby doesn’t really pay attention to that. His mind is reeling and he kind of hoped that he wouldn’t be totally buzzed in case something like this happens.

“Come again?”

This time, Littlewood is the one to laugh, soundly and warmly, and it takes all of Toby’s self-control to stop himself from leaning over the table and kissing him right then. His words are clearer now, but he purposely draws out his sentence when he repeats, “I like you.” Littlewood fumbles on his next couple of words, trying to figure out how to say it properly, “I just… wanted you to know.”

There’s more blinking, and Toby is absolutely speechless. Littlewood is playing with the crumbs of their jaffas.

It takes him a second, or maybe sixteen, but Toby takes in another breath. “I like you, too, Littlewood.”

Smiles are exchanged, and the feeling that erupts in Toby’s stomach is definitely not from the alcohol.

He runs his hand down the leather holder the receipt was placed in, and once he opens it up, he stops. “ _T-thirty…!_ ”

Toby instinctively rummages through his pocket. Yes, yes, those 50% coupons were still there. Easy, peasy.

There was an arrow pointing towards the back of the receipt, and a smiley face. Huh? He turns it over, feeling the flimsy paper in his fingertips.

Written entirely in crayon and colored pencils is a note detailing: “Those coupons aren’t valid for tonight.”

His stomach is turning again, not at all in the good way. There’s more.

“P.S. You owe me. A payment is needed for my matchmaking services by Friday.”

Toby grumbles to himself, reaching for his wallet. Thirty gold nuggets it is.

* * *

 

(Toby does, in fact, come back to the Jaffa Cake Factory Friday afternoon. Instead of lugging a sack gold pieces like Honeydew expected, he carries in tow five torches, twenty-two blocks of TNT, a flint and steel, and weirdly enough… a bed.

“I stole these from you a while ago so I thought you might like them back!” He explains in a rush, a sheepish smile on his face as he backs away. Before Honeydew can shout or demand for him to bring something else, Toby is floating down the entrance ring, a “thank you!” reverberating throughout the factory.

“ _TOBY!_ ”)

* * *

 

There are two things wrong with this picture, as far as Honeydew can tell. One, Lalna was up in the penthouse-office for no reason whatsoever. Two, he was pacing the perimeter of his hot tub, mumbling obscure phrases to himself. The mumbling was nothing enough. But Lalna never paces. Ever. (It’s more of an endearing Xephos trait, to be honest.)

A list of things that could have gone wrong enter Honeydew’s head as he slowly makes his way to his desk. Maybe Lalna wants to quit? Or… maybe he’s suffering from a really bad illness and he’s here to discuss his will, and he’s leaving ten million gold nuggets to his closest and greatest friend Honeydew? Or, worse yet… oh no. It couldn’t be. Miss… Miss Clucky? He was just downstairs to feed her her breakfast!

Lalna turns to him with bated breath, a nervous smile breaching his features, “Hey! Honeydew! I was wondering when you were going to come back-”

“Miss Clucky’s dead isn’t she?!”

Lalna pauses in his sentence, mouth forming an “O,” before shaking his head at his absurd exclamation. “No, no, she’s very much alive, I saw her this morning and… that’s not what I’m here to talk about! I-”

Honeydew lets out a breath of relief, slumping into his office chair and massaging his temples. “That’s good. I wouldn’t know what to do without Miss Clucky…”

He reopens his eyes, and Lalna is still there. Right, he had to tell him something. “So, what brings you here, Lalna, my bud?” He kisses up, because that offer on his will was still a valid assumption. Ten million gold nuggets could last him quite a while.

Honeydew attempts to swivel in his office chair, but it refuses to move. Damn, everything would be much more dramatic if he had a swivel chair and the remote to the lamps in his room. He had dropped it in his hot tub trying to set the mood, and he keeps forgetting to ask Lalna about getting it fixed and - Lalna. Yes, of course he was paying attention.

“I work here?” Lalna is more bemused than everything else, but his gaze becomes still again, and he places his gloved hands on Honeydew’s desk. “Honeydew, I need your… help.” It’s apparently very difficult for Lalna to phrase this, and his uneasiness has Honeydew waiting on the edge of his seat. Lalna was the proud, completely sure of himself type of person! Why would he need help from someone like himself?

“Uh, sure, what’s up?” He tries not to be overly curious about the subject, but he can’t help the way he leans his body over his desk, inching closer to the goggled scientist.

“The matchmaking service you’re doing… I need your help. It’s a long story.”

Honeydew’s eyes widen and he sits back into his seat, letting out a breath. Seems like his guesses were far fetched, and he suddenly has a huge craving for popcorn. He stretches out his legs, and the soles of his feet still don’t touch the floor when he looks Lalna straight in the eyes and says, “I’ve got time.”

Looks like that visit to Pig Island is going to have to wait.

* * *

 

Lalna’s life could easily become a melodramatic film, Honeydew concludes as he watched Lalna reenact every single thing that has happened to him starting from the war in the Old World to trapping Rythian in a force field in front of his castle. He’s busy switching between his “Rythian voice” and his regular voice while acting out dialogue - “You’re the only one who seems to care about the Old World!” “Yeah, of course I do. Also you’re super awesome and terrifying, I’m scared of being trapped here! Please help me!” Honeydew thinks some of the details are a bit off, but he doesn’t stop him in his spiel.

“And basically, this remote right here is hooked up to the redstone frequencies that can set off the nuclear bombs I placed underneath their base.” Lalna explains, slightly out of breath from running around the penthouse in an attempt to fully demonstrate everything. He tucks the remote back into his pack and he looks worryingly into Honeydew’s eyes. “So… is that a bit much?”

Needless to say, the last hour or so of storytelling was fairly exciting. But there was still one thing he didn’t really understand. Honeydew hopes he isn’t offensive when he asks, “What does this have to do with the whole matchmaking thing, again?”

Lalna chuckles, cheeks flaring pink. He settles in the bean bag, trying to make himself comfortable, but he’s still antsy. It looks like he’s already about to jump out of his seat and start pacing again, but he sticks it through. He coughs into his hand. “About that… uh, I mentioned how Zoeya came to visit my castle before the whole force field bit right?”

“Yeah, you did,” Honeydew answers, recalling the bit when Lalna said that he had taught the girl how to make a mining laser, and her mute dinosaur, a musket. He still doesn’t get what that has to do with anything, but places his chin in his hands anyway as he waits for Lalna to explain the most important part of his whole tale.

“I think I like Zoeya.” The scientist is twiddling his thumbs now, and it seems like he’s way more invested on having a staring contest with Jarvis. The iron golem just stares back at him listlessly, and Lalna ends up blinking anyway.

“Oh?” Honeydew perks up at this confession. Lalna has a love life… that _didn’t_ have to do with his lasers or mass fabricators or that weird pinkish purple goo he carries around with him pretty much everywhere? Screw everything else, Honeydew was completely interested in this.

“And Rythian pretty much likes her, too.” Lalna continues, waiting for Honeydew to piece everything together. “More importantly Rythian probably told her about the whole force field incident, and Zoeya’s been completely wary of me ever since.”

The “Oh,” Honeydew lets out next is nothing of glaring interest, but one of deflation. Of course there was a problem. He guesses that’s where the melo part of melodramatic comes from in Lalna’s narrative.

“I just need to explain to her what happened. Help me out, please?” The way that Lalna looks at him with vulnerability makes Honeydew shake in his seat. He hated seeing his friend like this, even if getting positive results for this might be close to impossible. There were too many variables that stopped him from getting the easy way out of things, and he didn’t want to get Lalna any more upset than he is right now.

Maybe it was the really shitty acting that came from Lalna’s part, but Honeydew feels like he needs to do something for his friend. And if that means matchmaking him with someone most probably completely impossible, he’ll do it. Honeydew grins, pushing all the bad thoughts to the back of his mind, “What are friends for? First things first… are you planning to meet her in that get-up?”

Lalna looks down at his attire, and then back up at Honeydew in confusion. “Yes? I mean, don’t I usually see you guys in this?”

Honeydew just about facepalms. Just. Doesn’t Lalna know how to impress the ladies, like, at all? He sighs. There was more work to do than he thought there was. “Okay, okay, okay. Meet me back up here in thirty minutes. We’ll do something about,” he pauses, motioning to Lalna and crinkling his nose, “all that.”

Lalna pouts.

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Dress up fancy for every outing, no matter how casual it is. It makes you seem serious about world politics, that’s what.**

**DON’T: Wear your gross smelly labcoat with your gross smelly hair, Jesus fucking Christ.**

“I’m here. Tell me, Honeydew, _why_ am I here again?”

“Aw, come _onnn_ , Xeph! This is for Lalna! Look at how atrocious his outfit is! It’s worse than yours.”

“Well, I’m leaving. See you Lalna. Hope everything works out well.”

“Xephos! I was just playing around!” The dwarf clutches onto the back of Xephos’s coat, keeping him from leaving. He holds him steady, just in case Xephos tried anything funny, “You’ve got to stay; you’re playing the role of the emotionally supportive friend! I’m just the one calling the shots.”

They’re up in his penthouse, and Honeydew’s just finished setting everything up for his new plan of action - Operation: Makeover. The folding screen was set up in the corner of the room for Lalna’s privacy, along with a couple of hair products and outfits Xephos had brought along with him.

He gives Lalna a thumbs up, ushering him to the folding screen with a random choice of suits, and the scientist returns it with an awkward smile. Honeydew dusts off his hands before placing them on his hips and admiring his work. God, was he the best matchmaker in the history of Tektopia.

Xephos sidles up besides him, whispering, “I just don’t think Lalna has to get all gussied up for Zoeya, I mean isn’t he good enough as is-”

“Oh, geeze, look at you, Xephos.” Honeydew tches his friend, tiptoeing to sling his arm around Xephos’s shoulders, and more or less dragging him down to his height. He boops him in the nose, grinning smugly when he reminds him, “Who has two thumbs and set you and Lom up together, again? Right! Me!”

He lets go of Xephos, leaving the spaceman to straighten himself up, and reaches over for the pile of hair products they threw onto his desk. Honeydew picks at random and pushes the plastic bottle into Xephos’s hands, “Now, will you be a doll and help Lalna put on this mousse thing I found in your chest?”

It’s more of a demand than a request, and Xephos thinks this is probably why Honeydew is the CEO of Honeydew Inc. and not himself. Honeydew had this way of getting people to do as he wishes and it was a power that couldn’t be helped. Xephos grumbles, bringing the bottle over to the folding screen, and he cringes at the way Lalna threw his suit on.

The helpless giggle Lalna lets out as he fumbles with his tie almost makes Xephos twitch in anger. Almost. He looks over the screen, and Honeydew is still watching. The dwarf urges him to continue.

This could be a long day.

* * *

 

To say Lalna looked pretty snazzy when he cleans up is an understatement. With his quantum armor put into a chest and his dumb labcoat and boots tossed aside, he looked nothing like the Lalna they all knew and loved. Instead, he was sporting a well-fit white tuxedo and a custom-made green tie with a rocketship pattern. He wore black dress shoes, and the tiny heels made him seem taller in comparison. Lalna’s hair was washed thoroughly and is now coiffed back with gel and tons of hairspray, a la Xephos. His beard was trimmed and he looked more neat and prim than either of them could believe.

Lalna doesn’t think much about it. He’s more focused on the whole “crap, crap, crap, this is already seeming like it’s gone too far out of hand how am I even going to get Zoeya to talk to me anyway” factor, and it’s not exactly like Honeydew can blame him. Even if this wasn’t the super cool, calm, and badass Lalna, who always laughed at everyone else’s worries and insisted he was doing great himself, he’s still one of his best pals.

“You’re going to do fine, friend,” Honeydew stresses, pinning the ridiculously tacky flower mic Xephos prepared for him earlier onto his suit. It was a light blue so it would match a bit with his tie, and it surprisingly goes really well with his eyes. He hands him the earpiece that comes along with it, and Lalna wraps the wiring around his ear. “The computer control is right above your lab, and I’ll be there supervising you from there, kapeesh?”

Lalna nods, a faint smile playing at his lips that it seem like he’s asking ‘And how exactly do you expect to ‘supervise’ us?’ but he keeps his mouth closed. He reaches for the top of his head and frowns when he doesn’t feel the familiar hunk of metal at his fingertips. “Can’t I at least keep the goggles?”

Honeydew waggles his finger at Duncan, shaking his head in disapproval. “Nope! Not until after this whole thing blows over. Now, where were we?”

* * *

 

Lalna is beginning to leave the factory, and Honeydew is suddenly nervous. If he screws up convincing her at their castle, then it’s pretty much game over. He can’t possibly let that happen! Honeydew side-steps in from of the doors with a haste, and Lalna raises his brow like he’s grown two heads or something. “What is it?”

“Actually, I think it’d be _much_ better if I went to go get her instead, don’t you think?” Honeydew begins to ask, but by the time the suggestion is out of his mouth, his flying ring is activated and he’s out the door.

“Don’t get your suit dirty while I’m gone, Lalna!” is the last thing he calls out before he’s gone.

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Have your friends ask your loved one out for you. It makes you look like you don’t have enough time for them, while also making you see very distant and too cool for school.**

**DON’T: Ask someone out after placing a _nuclear bomb_ underneath their base. That’s not cool.**

There was a lot of mindless flying around his surroundings before he found Rythian and Zoeya’s base, just southwest of the Jaffa Cake Factory. He pins a lot of it on the fact he didn’t bother asking Lalna for a map or anything, but it certainly didn’t help that their base was in the middle of a swamp. Who makes a castle in the middle of a swamp? Jackasses, that’s who.

“They’ve really let themselves go, haven’t they?” Honeydew murmurs to himself, peeking his head through the hole that used to be the  front entrance. He could barely trudge through the ruined soul sand that panned their castle, and now looking into it, he could see that it was mostly rubble. It wasn’t exactly trespassing when there wasn’t something blocking him from entering, right? “Hello? Rythian? Zoeya?”

No response. Were they out doing something, then?

He makes way to leave, but there’s a vine-ridden hole leading to… was that a throne room? Why doesn’t Honeydew Inc. doesn’t have a throne room? Honeydew’s tempted to make it out as nothing, thoughts about how he was going to try and tell Lalna to reschedule everything when Zoeya was actually, well, home, but there’s a distinct humming coming from the chamber.

That’s enough to convince him he’s got to at least try, for Lalna’s sake. Someone must be down there and there was a big chance it might be the person he’s looking for. He floats down the hole and lands on a velvet platform, surveying his surroundings. Definitely a throne room, he confirms when his eyes land on a fallen crown and a mushroom stump. The fallen crown, mostly, because he doesn’t really understand why they had a giant mushroom down here anyway or why it was cut down. The other mushrooms are littered around the room but he guesses it’s because of the environment and temperature down here because God, was it humid.

He wraps both of his arms around his body and continues to look around. There’s some wavy blue enigma to his left that he can’t exactly make out, and Honeydew hesitantly moves towards the opening. The voice is getting louder, so he thinks he’s got the right idea.

“Fishton! It’s your solo time!” The voice chirps, back turned towards the square of reinforced stone. She’s talking to a dead fish. Huh. However, Honeydew thinks he’s seen weirder.

“Zoeya?”

“Woah! Hey, Honeydew!” Zoeya pushes her goggles out of her face, bringing up her fringe with them. Her long hair is pulled back into a high ponytail and a pencil and notepad are in her hands. There’s a small computer monitor set up within the cave walls and the repeated “Log In” sign is blinking. “What brings you down here?”

“Unofficial… CEO business, uh, yeah,” He answers lamely, and he blames that on himself because he didn’t really think of any valid reason for him to come and get her anyway. He looks past the reinforced glass and all the technical machinery and the waviness is beginning to blur his vision over, and he has to blink and rub his eyes. “So, what are you up to?”

“Trying to figure out how to disassemble the nukes Lalna placed here,” her eyes are shifty and he feigns curiosity at the subject. Stupid Lalna and his stupid ways of demonstrating his dominance in the world. She brightens, however, when adding, “But that’s okay because Fishton and I are super great at computers and techy things! I can totally hack into the system and fix everything.”

“Ha, ha, that Lalna,” Honeydew cringes at his awkward voice, but he isn’t exactly the most fluent liar in the world. He decides to get right to the point, “Listen, Zoeya. I kind of need your assistance at the factory.”

“Hmm?”

When he notices her gaze turn back to the computer, and she’s jotting more things down into her notepad, he’s quick to add, “This is a job only you can do! With your sciencey computer skills, and all! Everyone at the factory is pretty much useless, anyway.”

There’s a glint in her eyes when he mentions this, and she looks back at him. “Really? Just for me?” Zoeya looks like she’s considering it, but she noticeably deflates once she remembers one important detail. She clears her throat, seemingly apologetic, “But I’m supposed to be here manning the castle and trying to disarm this nuke! Rythian’ll be really disappointed in me, again…”

“Rythian, huh? Where’s the ol’ mage anyway?” Honeydew asks, trying not to seem too interested. If Rythian wasn’t here, that would mean that a lot of things could go smoother, and there would be no troublesome questioning on why he’s trying to lure Zoeya all the way to Honeydew Inc. so that Lalna can go and court her.

She shrugs, “Off with Teep somewhere! He told me he wanted to give me some time alone to work on this,” Zoeya then looks around, as if she was trying to see if someone was listening into their conversations, and she bends over to whisper, “but I think it’s mostly because he doesn’t like to see me messing with science. He says he’s okay with it, but I think he’s just lying.”

“It seems like he’ll be gone for a while.” Honeydew muses, nudging her with her elbow, “It wouldn’t hurt him if you left to help us while he’s away. We’re all friends here!”

This was the final push into convincing Zoeya, and she twirls the pencil in her fingers thoughtfully. “Well, it _does_ sound like a lot of fun!” She giggles, snapping her goggles back down.

“Good, that’s good.” Honeydew runs a hand through his beard, and he begins to make his way out of the chamber. Zoeya follows suit, flipping her notepad closed, - was that a doodle of a mushroom? - tucking the pencil into the spiral binding, and into her pack. She brings the fish along, too, but he doesn’t make a point to question it. Some questions are better unanswered anyway.

Honeydew thinks it’s worth a shot when he offhandedly mentions, “You don’t really need to worry too much about the nuke; Lalna wouldn’t really set it off without a reason.”

Zoeya’s expression hardens at the mention of Lalna, but it’s obvious she’s trying her best to consider both sides of the story. She nods again, a weak one at that, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The wind is distracting and he can barely feel his face when they exit back onto the swampy earth. Honeydew fidgets mid-flight. “Zoeya?”

“Yep?”

“Is there any chance you know the way back to Honeydew Inc.?”

* * *

 

Zoeya does, in fact, know the way back to Honeydew Inc., and Honeydew breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the giant Santa Claus statue from afar. He feels as though he should be worried at the fact that Zoeya knew where it was located and how far it was from Blackrock, down to the very meter and coordinate, but he has bigger things on his plate.

Or specifically, one thing that starts with an L and rhymes with Schmalna. (SPOILER: It has to do with Lalna!)

He leads her into the factory, and she “ _ooh_ ”’s and “ _ahh_ ”’s at a lot of the things he points out. (Honeydew runs the “dance” command on their mining turtle, and he’s amazed at how fascinated she is by the tiny robot breaking mad moves.)

Honeydew begins the tour of the floors, mostly recalling all the crazy things that have happened instead of what they were used for, or any informational wazoo like that. Pft. What kind of person do you take him for?

His voice gradually gets louder as he approaches the level Lalna is - or _should_ \- be on. If his nerves didn’t make him run away and hide at his castle, that is. Honeydew makes sure to enunciate everything clearly when he announces, “And here, Zoeya, is where we need your help. This is our lab level!”

“Ooh! Lab level, I’m really feeling it now,” Zoeya quips from behind the dwarf, shooting ahead of him and balancing herself on the edge of the lime green ring. “What is it I’m-”

She stops herself. It’s only then that she gets to take in all of her surroundings, and the spark in her expression dies down. Zoeya tries to turn herself back around, but she stumbles over the sign staked into the floor. A sign that reads: “Lab and Genetic Research (Lalna’s Level!)”

Honeydew can only hope for the best from here on out.

“Hi there.”

“Lalna.” Zoeya returns coolly, lifting her head in acknowledgement. Lalna opens his mouth to say something, but her attention is already back onto Honeydew, and there is an air of annoyance in her voice when she says, “What do I need to do here?”

“Well, that’s what Lalna’s here for!” Honeydew motions to the neatly dressed scientist, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I’m not really good with all the technical talk and it’s just some boring ass machine thing Lalna built anyway,” he throws Lalna a grin at this, “So he’ll be your guide for the day. Well, I’m off!” He gives a quick wave before scurrying up to the level above.

The earpiece in Lalna’s ear goes off next, a booming voice erupting from the mic, “Testing, testing, testes!" A high-pitched giggle. "One, two, three, one, two, three. Lalna, friend, can you hear me?”

Lalna gives a curt nod, and he looks up towards the ceiling. There Honeydew was, face pressed against the odd design of glass on the Computer Control floor, a headset on with its mic brought close to his mouth. He urges him to continue on and pretend as if he isn’t there. “Be smooooth, Lal. You can do this.”

“See, our wheat processor isn’t really doing so well, and we still need to feed the seeds into a condenser in case the ratio of wheat to seeds doesn’t balance itself out.” The laughter that escapes his throat is stiff and awkward, and he’s paying more attention to his sonic screwdriver than her.

Zoeya just nods again, and she examines the mess of deployers and block breakers and pneumatic tubing and colored alloy wire. He presses his lips tightly together. To say something, or to just let the night pass in silence? The way Honeydew whisper-yells into his earpiece encourages him to pick the latter, and his voice is shaking when he brings up the topic. “About the nuke… Zoeya, you’ve got to let me explain that.”

She’s still looking at the contraption, and he’s sure that Zoeya’s probably planning on ignoring him for the rest of her stay here, so he’s surprised when she speaks up, “I know. I know you probably have your reasons, but a nuke?” Lalna cringes at the way her voice squeaks at the probability of a nuke used as a threat against someone who hasn’t done anything yet. She sighs, running her fingers through the entangled ends of her hair, and now her eyes are boring into his. “Lalna, I don’t want any wars. I don’t want people to fight over something so small and stupid! Why can’t everyone just get along and be friends?”

Lalna scoffs at this, getting more irritated as she goes on, and he wishes Honeydew hadn’t made him wear this damn suit. He raises his voice, whether intentional or not, “Does it look like I want any wars, either? That was kind of the point of the nuke! Rythian was getting too warmonger-y and he needed something a little more convincing than a simple buddy-buddy conversation. The nuke was the only way,” Lalna’s expression eases, and he takes a deep breath. His hand encloses her shoulder, and his tone is more soft when he says, “I would never press that button unless he starts something. I promise.”

Zoeya’s gaze on him is one of disbelief. Her eyes leave his to scan the squid tanks behind him, and he wishes that they’re back on him. Lalna can feel her shaking beneath his grip, but she’s surprisingly steady when she mentions, “I like it here, Lalna. I don’t want a war to ruin everything again.”

“I like it here, too, Zoe. That’s why I wanted to explain that to you.” Lalna finishes, letting go of her shoulder and turning his attention back to the deployers. There were only a couple of seeds left, but he’s in no big rush, considering the pneumatic tubes stopped production since jaffa storage was at full capacity. When they finally get around to delivering those goods, it’s better if this is all set up, anyway. He sneaks one more glance at her, “And I’m sorry.”

“Sorry…?"

“Sorry about the bomb, I mean. Sorry about trapping Rythian in a force field, and sorry about not trusting you two.”

Zoeya cracks a smile at this, and she nudges Lalna with her shoulder. “It’s alright now. Gosh, I’m glad that’s over with! I really dislike having to dislike people!” She wipes at the non-existent sweat that lines her forehead, and she seems more happy with the entire situation. “So, boss, what do we need to do for thus uh… thing?”

Lalna raises an eyebrow, his lips tugging upwards, “Know anything about piping or deployers?”

She shakes her head, flushed in embarrassment. “Uh, not really? But, hey, that’s only because doing science in secret was really hard with Rythian being in the castle, like, all the time!” Zoeya proclaims with her hands on her hips, and Lalna can only nod in order to have her be self-satisfied. “Plus, I’m a pretty fast learner if you let me!”

“Good,” Lalna smirks, checking his recipe book once more. He had most of these memorized by heart after all those times he’s crafted these at least more than twice in his castle, but there were a good thousand of them that he couldn’t put past his brain. He begins to list off most of the mundane materials as he reads them, and Zoeya salutes him before she lowers herself down to the sorting level to retrieve them.

He smiles as he watches her leave before humming to himself and attending to the wheat processor. Honeydew’s voice is in his ear again, but this time he’s asking, “Psst, oi, Lalna. When are you going to man up and confess, already?”

His smile becomes tight-lipped once more when he realizes that, shoot, of course he had to confess, that was the entire point of going to Honeydew in the first place. Lalna plays with the flower on his chest, and he realizes that if Zoeya comes back and sees him talking to the pin, she’ll probably think he’s batty or something. He looks around, and half-whispers to the pin, “Confessing? Oh, uh, isn’t it a tad too early for that?”

“ _Laaalna!_ ” Honeydew whines, and it’s really grating on his eardrums, “I can’t mark this as a success on my matchmaking chart if you don’t, you know!”

“But-” Lalna begins to interject, however he can hear Zoeya whistling as she makes her way back up to his lab, and he tries to make it seem as if he was working on something. He ran over to the contraption, and began to connect random bits of colored alloy wire together on the floor. (He can always just pull them off later.)

“ _I’ve gooot the maaterials!_ ” She calls in sing-song, placing the chest she was holding next to the processor and filling it with the bits and bobs they needed to make this work. However, Zoeya makes the mistake of following Lalna’s gaze towards the ceiling, and he has to grab her by the cheeks to stop her from seeing the dwarf peeping in on them.

“Uh. Sorry, I-” Lalna lets go of her cheeks immediately, pulling his hands behind his backs. He makes sure to glance back at the glass and shoot daggers at Honeydew. Honeydew smiles back sympathetically.

Luckily, Zoeya is more preoccupied with other things to notice the way he blushes and can’t seem to look her straight in the eye. “Omigosh! Is that an iron golem? You have one in your lab?!” She floats on over to Thunder, who is guarding the cages he kept the test subjects in. It was enough to keep Honeydew away from accidentally opening them again, like the last time he left him in his lab alone while he went out to get materials. “He’s exactly like Johnny Iron back at Blackrock!”

“Johnny Iron, _right._ ” Lalna grins to himself in spite of Honeydew beginning to sing “Kiss The Girl” very, very loudly into his earpiece. He pulls the damned thing out of his ear, but doesn’t have time to stuff it into his pants pocket before Zoeya spies him. The look in her eyes reads ‘what was that?’ but Lalna just says, “Don’t worry about it. Um, yeah, this is Thunder. We used to have another golem here - his name was Bolt - but uh. Something happened.”

“Oh no!” Zoeya brings her hands up to cover her mouth.

“Yeah, Honeydew sort of knocked him off into the basement, and we sealed him in there.” He laughs, running a hand through his gelled hair without a thought before cringing at the feeling in his fingertips. Gross. “It’s okay, though! We still check up on him every now and then, and he seems to be doing well!”

“Hah, your hair looks all funny now!” Zoeya crinkles her nose, reaches up to mess with his hair. Instead of fixing it, however, like he expected her to, she shapes the blonde mop into a mohawk. Stepping back, she beams at her work, “There you go, goggles! Lookin’ much better.”

She pauses as if she was just realizing something, and Zoeya carefully looks him up and down. “Lalna! Why are you even wearing a suit anyway? New uniform policy or something?”

Lalna grits his teeth together and he says nothing more than a vague, “I guess you can say that.”

They work on the output piping in silence. Well, almost silence, really. Lalna had to explain a lot of the things he was doing before Zoeya finally got it through and was able to work alongside him, but he didn’t really mind. It’s nice, he notes, getting to talk to Zoeya again without all the undertones of being enemies with Rythian.

He catches Honeydew still pressing himself against the glass in the corner of his eye, and after pocketing the earpiece, he kind of forgot about him. Lalna waves when he’s sure Zoeya isn’t looking, but he doesn’t expect Honeydew to begin tapping the glass. His eyes widen in shock and he’s miming for Honeydew to shut up, while Zoeya doesn’t really seem to notice.

“ _Confess!_ ” Honeydew mouths.

Lalna shakes his head and crosses his arms. No way was he going to confess when he just repaired their friendship! Nuh-uh.

Honeydew’s tapping is louder. “ _CONFESS!_ ”

“Do you hear that, Lalna?” Zoeya asks, looking up from the automated wheat machine in confusion. Lalna feigns ignorance and shrugs, passing it off as Xephos probably playing around in one of the other floors. Zoeya doesn’t think much of it and continues to place pipes.

Lalna takes in a deep breath. Okay, yeah, he’s Lalna, and in a tuxedo for crying out loud. He can do this. If being the most powerful person on Tektopia was easy enough, confessing that you like someone should be a piece of cake. Just keep cool. He tucks in his screwdriver into his pack, and he walks up to her. “Zoeya, hey!”

“Hi, Lalna.” She chirps back, but all of her attention is on the condenser and energy collector now. The accumulating EMC was enough to provide stacks of seeds in no time, and all she had to do now was connect the condenser back to the deployers and then the wheat process would be fully automated. “ _Iiii_ just need to hook up this thingamabob back up to these doodads, and we should be all set from here on out!”

“That’s good!” Lalna nods, and he feels his hands go clammy. How should he go about this again? Zoeya, I like you. I like you, Zoe. You look really cool when you handle that wrench, Zozo, by the way, I just want you to know that I like you? Unfortunately for him, neither of these phrases fall out of his mouth. Instead, he says, “You light up my life like the light that emanates from the force field that surrounds my castle.”

“Allll done - wait, uh… what?”

A mantra of “shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up” comes from the floor above them, but Lalna can’t hear that right now. He’s too busy trying to find a way out of this. “I-I mean- uh, you make me feel more intoxicated than all of the rum in my wine cellar drunk together.”

The voice from his earpiece in his pocket is much louder along with his calls from the Computer Control level that he’s sure that Zoeya can hear now. Lalna panics.

“What I’m trying to say is,” he begins exasperatingly, and he doesn’t remember another time in his entire life when he ever felt more embarrassed than he feels right now. The words leave his mouth before he can even really think, “You bring me as much joy as a properly running nuclear reactor!”

Honeydew decides he should just pack everything up and move his business to another town. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to deal with this.

And then she smiles. “Lalna, you’re a real fun guy! Like a mushroom!”

“Wha-?”

“You get it? Fun guy, fungi? Hah!”

Lalna grins to himself, shaking his head. A part of him wonders if she really understood what he meant beneath all those cheesy metaphors and similes, but he guesses he doesn’t mind their relationship where it is right now. “Yeah, yeah I get it, Zoeya.”

* * *

 

(Lalna pays Honeydew the next day with a stack of UU matter. He doesn’t really understand what he’s supposed to use it for even though he’s pretty sure that Lalna tried to explain the concept to him months ago, so he uses it for other personal matters. And by personal matters, he means using it to stick things back together when he accidentally breaks them. Especially Xephos’s prized trophies.

He figures none of them would notice anytime soon.)

* * *

 

“A company pool does sound nice… wait! I mean, _no_ , Nilesy, I’m not looking for a pool deal right now. I’m kind of busy with other stuff, like, I dunno, sleep? Have you heard of it?”

Needless to say, Honeydew becomes cranky when he’s running on less than eight hours of sleep. And that it was well before noon showcases the fact that he needs to drive the pool salesman out of the factory and back home. Waking up to someone right in his face was weird enough when Sips did it, but now Nilesy was doing it too? No one bothers him this early in the morning. _No one._

“Sleep? What’s that?” Nilesy makes a face before throwing his head back in laughter. “Just joking! But seriously, Honeydew, my pools are great and _extremely_ cheap.”

Honeydew groans, pulling his covers over his head. Cut the dwarf some slack, he was having a great dream about living in a tower adjacent to Xephos’s own, and that the rooftop of his was super slick and awesome. They were just about to play some video game by communicating through their feet, but instead he felt the stare of a certain intrusive poolboy.

 _Thanks Nilesy,_ he thinks angrily.

“So, uh,” Nilesy pipes up again, apparently not getting the message and wanting to keep the conversation fluid, “I hear you’re running a matchmaking service! That sounds cool.”

A sigh escapes his mouth and Honeydew pulls the ends of his pillow over his ears. It dulled the sound enough, he believes. “Yeah, yeah, it is. Now will you leave?”

“But that would mean that I filled out this form for nothing!”

“...Form…?” The word incites a reaction out of Honeydew, and he peeps from under his covers. “What form?”

“The matchmaking form on your desk!” Nilesy answers, jerking a thumb towards his in-tray, which was currently being manned by Jarvis. “Speaking of which, your iron golem buddy has a really cool tie.” He comments, eyeing the fabric.

“You’re here for my services?” Honeydew repeats, rubbing his eyes. If this was strictly business, he supposes he didn’t mind waking up at the absurd hour of nine in the morning.

“Yeah, I guess. See, something’s been bugging me for a while now and….” Nilesy pulls the from form where he’s chucked it onto his desk, scanning the contents, “Wow, some of the things you ask on here are really pushing it. Like, ‘check box if the thing you like is a living, breathing person’. I call discrimination, here.”

“Oh, bugger off.” Honeydew grabs for the piece of paper in Nilesy’s hands, sitting up in his bed and he begins to quickly read it through. “Mr. Enderborn… attraction formed after babysitting Baby Jim… uh, who’s Baby Jim?”

“Rythian and Zoey’s baby.” Nilesy answers nonchalantly, waiting for him to read out the rest of the form.

“Their _what?_ ”

“Their baby volcano.” He answers as though a baby volcano was something that everyone had, and Honeydew digresses.

“Uh… huh.” Honeydew mumbles incredulously, turning the page and thinking the rest over. He runs a hand through his beard, a light bulb ticking on in his head. “I’ve got a PhD in Matchmaking 101, and I’d like to diagnose you with Ender Fever.”

The laughter is going to come any second now. He pops one eye open.

Nilesy is staring at him with a blank expression.

Honeydew clears his throat. “Right. Back to business.”

He hops out of bed, the soles of his feet padding against the wooden floor as he strides over to his desk. He pulls the keyboard to the main computer hub in his suite closer to him, typing in the password to the Honeydinc Network, and scrolling down to his recently saved files.

Honeydew double-clicks on a document appropriately titled “MATCHMAKING THINGS”  and proceeds to scroll all the way down the page three. He cracks his knuckles and begins to type in boldface: ‘Nilesy/Rythian? A match made in heaven? Who really knows?’

He skips a few lines, and then looks at Nilesy as if he was trying to gather some ideas about how he would pair these two together this time. Honeydew taps at his helmetless head, brainstorming. He can tell that Nilesy is about to go and say something to ruin his concentration, so he shushes him very loudly and hopes he gets the idea.

The next time he opens his eyes, his fingers are already moving and typing as he thinks. Thank God for autocorrect. Honeydew leans back into his seat, pulling his hands back under his chin and glancing expectantly at Nilesy.

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Seduce your loved one by throwing rocks at their bedroom window and singing them a song at 2 AM.**

**DON’T: Knock at their front door with chocolates and roses at a more appropriate hour. What are you? Santa?**

“Are… are you sure this is even going to work?”

“If you didn’t think it would, you wouldn’t have dialed _1-800-LUV-GURU_   would you?” Honeydew points out, looking down at his customer pointedly though his pointed reading glasses he just put on that he considers very pointed. “Plus, this is pretty much fool-proof!” He insists, “Zoeya’s going to be spending the night at Lalna’s, and boom! No distractions!”

Said customer furrows his eyebrows together.

“I didn’t, though! I came here, remember?” Nilesy out-points Honeydew, making the pointing the dwarf did a bit useless and unpointy. “Does this factory even have a call center?”

“It could if you wanted! You’re hired!”

“No, no, dear God, no. Look, what I’m saying is… Rythian’s room doesn’t even have windows!”

* * *

 

Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices for true love. And sometimes, those sacrifices involve sneaking out in the middle of the night and placing a ladder on the walls of Blackrock Stronghold where Nilesy distinctly remembers Rythian’s room to be, craftily replacing basalt brick with glass panes.

“Good luck!” is what Honeydew calls out before he ducks behind the purple pool slide that Nilesy had made for them, peeping his head out. The moment of truth is here.

Nilesy throws a pebble, but it just rebounds off the walls of the castle and shoots into the pool. So do his other nine tries.

“Just… just sing.” Honeydew whispers loudly after just narrowly avoiding the last rock Nilesy sent up there. He nods meekly.

(When Honeydew isn’t looking, however, he sets up his pocket-radio to play “Baby It’s Cold Outside” so Nilesy can just lip sync to it and pretend to play the guitar, and no one would notice a thing.)

His plan backfires the second the song starts, though, because _a)_ there was no guitar in the song at all and _b)_ the singers sounded nothing like Nilesy, no matter how he tried to make it seem like he was just messing with his vocal chords. Nilesy is soon forced to turn it off, and he strums at his untuned guitar.

Honeydew seems to like it, and he even throws a pebble up to the window in a last-ditch effort for Rythian to wake up and notice this. Bullseye. Nilesy tries to send Honeydew a glare, but it’s hard enough singing an overlapping duet by himself and he isn’t sure Honeydew can tell, anyway.

Nilesy wonders if it’s ironic that a guitar string snaps the second Rythian opens his window - or rather, breaks it open with his red matter katar - and peers outside groggily. Nilesy sucks on his wound from the string.

“Nilesy? What the hell, man?” Rythian yells from his window, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. His hair is messy and his mask is slightly askewed after haphazardly throwing it on, but Nilesy thinks he looks all the more cute. “It’s like - it’s like, two in the morning!”

Weirdly enough, Nilesy continues to belt his lines, and he tosses the ruined guitar to the side. Once he finishes his (god awful) rendition of the song, he looks up expectantly at Rythian, “Aren’t you going to let me up?”

Rythian purses his lips together, elbows resting on his newfound windowsill. “Nilesy. Go home.”

Without thinking, Nilesy pushes the sleeves of his sweater up to his elbows and strides over to the ladder they forgot to put away. As he begins to climb it at an alarmingly fast rate, Honeydew’s senses jump into overdrive. _What is that guy doing?_

All he can hear from the behind the slide is a lot of clashing and sounds of struggle. Jesus Christ, why can’t he see into Rythian’s room from here? Honeydew growls in defeat as he scurries off to the ladder, gripping the rungs as he begins to climb up. He has to stop Nilesy.

Nilesy wrestles his way through the opening in Rythian’s window, falling headfirst onto the marble floor. He gets up straight away, brushing dust off of his jumper.

“Nilesy!” Rythian is wide-eyed, but his demeanor screams ‘half-asleep’ and he is pinching himself. “What are you-”

Nilesy looks around in a panic as though he is just realizing what he was doing, and he gulps. He pulls at his collar, fanning his reddening face with his hand. “See, uh, Ryth. I can explain!”

Honeydew’s hand anchors itself to the inside of Rythian’s room, and he pulls himself in. He is panting for breath and grabbing his knees as he straightens himself. “Nile-Nilesy! This wasn’t a part of the plan!” He fumes at the bespeckled man, gesturing wildly. “You were supposed to make him come to you! Not vice-vers- _AAAHhhh_ … Rythian! Hey, pal! What’re you doing here?”

The momentary anger subsides, and Honeydew is using Nilesy as a human-shield in case the mage does something rash.

“I don’t think anybody here realizes that this,” it is Rythian’s turn to flail about, and he motions to the entire room, “is my base! This is my room! And… and plans? What plans?!” He stops, bringing his arms down and glancing back and forth between the two. They are both whispering plans of possible escape to each other, a guilty expression painting their faces.

It is Nilesy who speaks up first. “There are no plans!” He laughs, waving the idea off with his hands in a way he hopes is at least moderately convincing. Nilesy shoves at Honeydew’s shoulder playfully, before bringing him close in a one sided hug. (READ AS: What The Hell Are You Saying You’re Blowing Our Cover And This Isn’t How Rythian Is Supposed To Figure It Out So Just Shut Up And Play Along!!!!) “Ha, ha, this dwarf! What a joker!”

“You see, I uh,” Nilesy grasps for another excuse, covering the dwarf’s mouth with his hand to muffle anything Honeydew might blurt out, “I was out and about replacing pool filters, you know me! And… and the moon! The moon looked really nice that I felt like singing!”

“And you just happened to have a guitar with you?” Rythian asks, crossing his arms. He totally isn’t buying it.

“...Yeah!”

“And what about Honeydew?”

Honeydew tears Nilesy’s hand away from him, gasping for breath before pushing at Nilesy’s side so that he wouldn’t try to stop him again. Fortunately for him, Honeydew doesn’t shame his dwarven side, and his small shove nearly topples Nilesy over. “Actually, that’s a LIE! He wanted to see you, Rythian!” He rushes to explain, in fear that Nilesy might strike back, “The plan was-”

Once Nilesy catches his footing, he sneers at Honeydew. “No plan! I was definitely here for the pool-”

“Guys.” Rythian tries to act as the intermediate, but his calls do nothing for the inevitable bickering between the two.

“Yes, there was a plan! You were here to tell Rythian-”

“I don’t like Rythian, what are you talking about?!” Nilesy yelps in a high-pitched voice, accidentally ratting himself out. He covers his mouth hastily in realization, and he can’t seem to look either of them in the eye.

Honeydew quiets down, twiddling his thumbs awkwardly. The silence that consumes the room is almost suffocating, and the dwarf absently wonders how Rythian is able to breathe with his mask on all the time.

“You… like me?” Rythian repeats, and the words feel so strange on his tongue that Nilesy winces.

“I do.” Nilesy sighs in defeat, looking down at his feet. Honeydew is slinking back towards the window in an attempt to escape when the time is right.

“I…” The mage rubs his temples, taking deep breathes. “I need time to think about this. And sleep.” He moves over to the door, and gestures for both of them to leave.

“Now both of you, get out.” Rythian escorts them out of his room, pushing at their backs and leading them to the nearest staircase. The heels of their feet are skidding against the marble flooring in an effort to stay a little longer, but Rythian continues on strong.

“And you,” Rythian points to Nilesy before he treads back to his bedroom, “...let’s talk later - at a more appropriate time, I mean. Meet me back here at say, like, ten?” What normally would sound like a parent scheduling a punishment to their rebellious teen is sounding incredibly soft and understanding. The warm smile poking through Rythian’s mask elicits Nilesy’s stomach to go all topsy-turvy, and he almost trips on the ruined staircase on their way down.

“So, let’s talk payment…”

Nilesy is too dazed to disagree.

* * *

 

(Nilesy comes back later that day, in an incredibly good mood and in the afternoon, at that, whistling as he plops a sack of ten diamonds onto his spruce desk. There is a certificate declaring their official friendship, too, but Honeydew is planning on chucking it into the trash later on, so he doesn’t really acknowledge it.

“So, how’d it go?”

“He says he’ll give it a chance.” Nilesy hums, bidding him a farewell and leaving the factory with a beam.

Honeydew puts all ten diamonds in the condenser to add to his “extra gold armor” fund.)

* * *

 

Honeydew is confused, and not the regular way of being confused he’s used to - how their entire factory works is one example. This is a different type of being confused, and Honeydew isn’t sure he can get away with Xephos or Lalna just doing all the work for him. “So, wait, let me get this straight. You pretty much called her a ‘wussie’ and now you think you like her?”

“Well, I was technically calling the people who visit her bar wussies, but… yeah. Basically.”

Honeydew sighs at the Scottish man sitting on the red bean bag, and he takes a swig of his coffee. A bunch of sugars and creamers, just like he likes it.

He purses his lips together, bringing his attention back to the sloppily completed form he holds in his hand. Honeydew side-glances at his client, a still expression taking over his face as he strokes his beard. “This is all sounding like a really dumb, cliché high school drama now.”

“So, I take it you won’t be helping me then?” Ravs huffs, beginning to stand up and leave his penthouse. “You know, I’m probably going to keep the flying ri-”

“Are you kidding me?” Honeydew yelps, slamming his coffee back onto his desk, and Ravs stops in his tracks. He misses the coaster, but he figures that it isn’t that much of a big deal. “Of course I’m going to help you! Drama is my favorite genre after all.”

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Write a meaningful, heartfelt love letter to your loved one. The cheesier and shorter, the harder it strikes their hearts. ( <3)**

**DON’T: Keep it long and complicated about how much you love ‘em, and feel whole as long as they’re with you or whatever. Cut the crap. People don’t dig that.**

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to lay down on my bed, and you’re going to tell me every single thing you feel about Minty.”

“So, kind of like therapy?”

“ _LOVE_ therapy, my dear Ravs.”

And that is the story of how Ravs began to lay down in Honeydew’s racecar bed, with Honeydew positioned on the side of the bean bag chair, taking notes on his clipboard. Honeydew doesn’t really know how this whole ‘therapy’ works, but he’s seen a lot of TV shows and he’s sure he can get the gist of it. (So far, it’s just been a lot of ‘How do you feel about this… ‘ _Minty_ ’ character’ and ‘ _Uh-huh_ ’’s and doodling Xephos in a skimpy bee costume for laughs.)

“And when we came back to the Crooked Caber, Nilesy was in my basement? And there was a ton of chicks! I mean, actual literal chickens! He was like, making chicken soup or something? But all of his chicks were messing with my squids and-”

“Wait! Hold it right there, let me just,” Honeydew presses a finger to Ravs’s lips, hurriedly scrawling a quick note onto his paper, “write this down… and… _perfect!_ ” He grins, pulling the paper from his clipboard and shoving it into Ravs’s face.

Ravs takes the paper and reads it through carefully. “Roses are red, violets are blue, like the squids in my basement, I really need you…? Honeydew, really?”

“I know, I know,” Honeydew say, taking the piece of paper back from Ravs before folding it into quarters and tucking it into his pack. “Genius, right?”

Ravs doesn’t have the heart to say no.

* * *

 

Courtesy of Honeydew Incorporated™, another go at MS Paint and his newfound editing skills, the love letter is printed and ready to go. Honeydew is sure Ravs won’t mind the shameless advertising for the Jaffa Cake Factory he snuck into the back of the card, and he leaves the envelope addressed to “Miss Minty Minute” on the mail perch. Tonight, in Jaffahampton’s brewery, is when sparks will fly, and Honeydew will gain his fourth consecutive successful match. He’s betting on it.

* * *

 

Minty shows up early. Way before Ravs even shows up. Honeydew panics.

She’s holding the letter in her hands, and she makes a beeline straight to the dwarf. He is still clearing up the weeds in the bar and replacing the flooring, and he can’t help the way his heart stops when Minty taps his shoulder.

Honeydew grips onto the handle of his spade, avoiding looking her in the eye because staring at her would probably scare him enough to reveal everything he’s been planning out loud, “Hey! Minty!” He smiles, removing another dirt block and reaching for the wood he was going to use to cover it.

“You sent this, didn’t you?” A pink, frilly envelope is pushed into his view. He gulps.

“What do you mean? I’ve never seen this before in my life!” Honeydew lies through his teeth, chuckling. “But, whoever sent that to you must really be into you!” He can’t let a good chance go to waste and he hints, badly at that, and Minty withdraws the letter back to her side.

“You think I haven’t heard of your matchmaking service before?” Busted. Honeydew cringes. “That’s all Sips and Sjin can talk about whenever they come to my bar for their business meetings nowadays.” Minty’s hands are on her hips, and she’s staring down at the dwarf.

“ _Dammit_ , Sips and Sjin.” He murmurs, mostly to himself, before raising his eyebrow in bewilderment. “Wait. So if you knew, then what are you…”

She shrugs, sitting on a stool and making herself comfortable as she eyes Honeydew. “I’m curious as to how you do your things. Plus,” Minty waggles the letter between her index and middle fingers once more, “the vandalizer is your client, and I haven’t gotten the chance to meet him yet.”

Honeydew has a terrible feeling in his stomach, and he can only nod as he begins to clean the shot glasses.

* * *

 

With Ravs still not at the brewery much, much later, Honeydew’s resorted to small talk with Minty to entertain her as they wait. This more or less involves awkward comments about the weather and how business is doing, and even Xephos was better at talking to Minty than he was. (He poked in earlier, after Honeydew ordered him to retrieve some pork from Pig Island for him. He definitely wasn’t going to have a repeat of, what he affectionately remembers as, “The Toby Incident” because he feels like it was Toby’s fault he forgot about the food in the first place.)

So Honeydew is especially glad when Ravs shuffles inside, announcing an apology about how he had to wait to close down shop, and settling himself next to Minty. “I, hey, Minty.”

“Ravs, is it?” Minty smiles, and Honeydew thinks it’s weird seeing her smile and chat when he was pretty sure she was just glaring at him moments earlier for trying to set her up with someone she’s never met before. But, hey, he isn’t complaining. “I’ve got your letter, it was very, uh… heartfelt?”

The way she emphasizes ‘your’ makes Honeydew silently snigger knowingly. Ravs shoots him a weird look, but he turns his attention back to Minty and nods. “Yeah, yeah, my letter of course. Listen, I’m sorry about the whole ‘wussie’ thing-”

“It’s fine, there’s no need to worry about that.” Minty seems offput about Ravs mentioning it, but Honeydew has no time to analyze all the small details because the timer for the furnace begins to shrill. He puts on his pickaxe patterned oven mitts and tiptoes over to the furnace. Honeydew pulls out a tray of pork-chops and sets it down on a nearby bar stool before making the table, and dividing their share of meat between the two plates. He pulls a tree-tap from his pack and taps the closest keg of beer, filling two stone mugs with his infamous Black Stuff.

“Bon appetit!” Honeydew announces, pinching his two fingers together and raising them in the air. He points to the dishes, explaining briefly, “What you have in front of you is the Pig Island’s specialty, the Fresh Sizzler, complete with bread rolls and apple sauce. If you have any complaints, be sure to issue them to _Xephos_ , and Xephos only.”

Honeydew leaves them be for the time being, scurrying out of the room and presumably somewhere closeby to hide and monitor the date.

Minty takes this chance to dig into her food and ask Ravs some questions, “So, the Crooked Caber, eh?”

Ravs scoffs, taking a bite out of his bread roll. He makes sure to swallow before coughing, staring at Minty pointedly, “I guess I could say the same to you, Miss Captive Creeper, huh?”

“Touché.” She grins, grabbing the handle of her mug and bringing it up to her lips. “That saying, ‘great minds think alike’ really works here, don’t you agree?”

Ravs reaches for his mug, too, and they both take a sip at the same time. Bad idea, of course, as they end up spitting out their mouthful of Black Stuff onto each other.

_“Eugh, gross!”_

“What the hell is this? _Death?_ ”

Minty scrapes her tongue with her top teeth, reaching for a bread roll in an attempt to counter the awful taste. Ravs follows suit, but not before he starts laughing at the way Minty looks, spots of Black Stuff on her face and hair. She tries to sneer at him, but how Ravs looks with a wet face makes her burst out into chuckles.

Once their laughter dies down, Minty reaches for some tissue across the table, and tosses some towards her date, who hastily accepts it with a rough “thanks.” They wipe themselves down as best as they can, and Minty whines that she can still smell the foul alcohol in her hair.

“I can totally make a better drink than that.” Ravs finishes wiping the sticky drink off of his face, and he takes Minty’s used tissue and throws it into the bin. He’s got pieces of tissue stuck to his face, and Minty laughs a bit before helping him get rid of the small bits of white fluff.

“I doubt it.” Minty sticks out her tongue, “I’ve been running my bar longer than you, and mines is probably way better than yours.”

“Is that a challenge, Minty?” He raises a brow, clearly intrigued by this, and Minty grins devilishly.

She jumps out of her seat and heads behind the counter to where the kegs were. “Of course it is.”

They finish making their drinks, and Minty is drinking’s Ravs’s, and Ravs is drinking Minty’s. Ravs’s is a strong rum with a lot of foam, and Minty’s is more reserved, a fruity cocktail with sugar detailing the rim, complete with a tiny umbrella and lemon slice. When Ravs just stares at her drink with a look that reads ‘ _are you kidding me,_ ’ she just shrugs and clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Sjin seems to enjoy it.”

* * *

 

They’re at least ten or eleven drinks in, Ravs can’t recall, but he’s more surprised than anything at how well their date is going. And that Minty is excellent at holding her alcohol. “You know,” his words are clear, but slightly sluggish from his cocktail, and he’s sloshing his drink around mindlessly, “I’ve got to give you props. I can’t believe I called you a wuss.”

“Are you feeling tipsy already?” Minty smirks, delicate fingers gripping the stone mug and taking another swig. “Just because I’m a barmaid doesn’t mean I don’t know how to handle myself.” She shrugs, picking at the remnants of the pork she’s just eaten.

Ravs chuckles. “I’ve learnt my lesson.” He’s twirling his fork around his empty plate now, and the torches surrounding the brewery are barely just wisps, now, and Ravs can’t take his eyes off of Minty. “Tonight has been…” Ravs struggles for the appropriate word because he honestly can’t express how much he enjoyed his night.

“Really fun,” Minty adds, licking the foam off the top of her lips. “I didn’t think it would be, at first.” She admits thoughtfully, downing the rest of her rum in one go.

“...Yeah?"

“Mmm,” She hums in agreement, grabbing her coat she’s laid on the back of her chair and pulling it on. Minty straightens her dress, and Ravs reaches out to give her a handshake. She takes his hand, but instead pulls him into a quick hug. “I’d really like to give this another try, again, Ravs,” she whispers into his reddened ear, and her breath tickles and his breathing is cut short.

Minty lets go off Ravs, tucking a loose hair behind her ear, and as she opens the door to the brewery, she calls, “Good night! I hope your business continues going strong.”

“...Thanks, Minty. I hope yours does-"

“I mean, if you let the Crooked Caber go down in the dumps, that could only make more room for the Captive Creeper, right?” There’s a smug grin playing on her lips, but by the time Ravs realizes what she said, the door’s shut and Minty’s left.

* * *

 

(Ravs’s payment comes through in the post about a week later. It’s a nondescript letter giving his thanks , including a coupon for the Crooked Caber - free drinks for a month! On Ravs! - and a short sticky note pasted on the back: “ _Don’t kill yourself drinking that terrible brew you Honeydinc-ers have over there. It’s way better here - Ravs_ ”

Honeydew huffs, tearing the note in half. He keeps the coupon in tact, however. He’ll probably need it in the future.)

* * *

 

“A farmer, he wants to leave Sipsco to become a _farmer_ , can you believe him?”

“Sips, Sips, calm down.”

It’s not everyday that Sips comes into his office and begins to rant to him about his assistant, or ever, really. He didn’t really expect Sips to come down all the way to his penthouse to do this, especially during his lunch break, but because Sips isn’t that type of person. Or, Honeydew thinks, throwing a long glance at the fuming business man, _maybe_ he is.

“How can you expect me to calm down when my only human employee is about to leave me?” There’s a undertone of sadness in this rhetorical question that Honeydew can’t really put his finger on, but he senses it’s there. “I need Sjin.”

“Well, you don’t really need him, do you? You’re the one who’s calling all the shots.” Honeydew suggests, but his mind is focused more on his pork sandwich than on Sips’s work-related problems.

“You don’t get it do you?” Sips lets out a haughty laugh, and all Honeydew can do is shake his head with wide-eyes. What else is there to get? Sips is sad because his best friend is thinking of leaving him. Isn’t that all? “I love Sjin.”

_Oh._

“Well,” Honeydew starts up awkwardly. Maybe he was interpreting this wrong, he usually did that. “I love Xephos, and I’d be sad if he left me too… but, you’ll live, Sips! Do you want Xephos to fill in for Sjin while he’s gone? I can arrange that.”

“I love Sjin.” He repeats, and the fierceness in his eyes is something to be taken seriously. Honeydew gulps.

“Right, right.” Honeydew presses his lips into a tight line, putting his sandwich down back onto his plate and dusting the bread crumbs off of his fingers. Despite being rivals for a while, Honeydew still considers Sips a dear friend of his, and if he needed help, there surely was something he could do to help him in this dilemma, right? It’s not like he had anything better to do; he hasn’t had a client in a week… wait. Client. Honeydew’s and Honeydon’ts of Matchmaking. He had a matchmaking service. He snaps his fingers before slamming his hands onto his desk and jumping out of his seat. “I’ve got a solution to this!”

“A solution…?” Sips echoes, blanking out. His anger has died down, and he is now looking at Honeydew with his eyebrows knitted together.

Honeydew scrambles around his desk to sling an arm around Sips’s shoulder, and he’s quite pleased that Sips is just a bit taller than him so that this action pans out a lot smoothly, or at least smoother than when he’s with Xephos. “Ol’ Sipsy, the _obvious_ solution to this mess is,” He lets go and points at himself with a smirk, “ _me!_ ”

“Look, buddy, don’t get any ideas here.” Sips’s eyes squint and stare Honeydew down, and oh, right, that’s why he’s the better CEO of the two. He’s more intimidating than Honeydew can ever wish to be, and Sips’s finger jabs at his chest, “I just told you that I love Sjin, and now you’re trying to get all touchy-touchy with me? I know I’m really, really good looking and an amazing catch, but, uh, care to be sympathetic?”

Honeydew crinkles his nose in disgust, “Eugh, Sips. Sjin can have you.” He looks the grey man up and down. “ _All_ of you.”

Sips scoffs.

“But, but that isn’t the point! You know the matchmaking service I run?” Did Sips just perk up, or was that just his imagination running wild because he hasn’t eaten his lunch yet?

Sips blinks, and whatever Honeydew had noticed is long gone. “Of course I do. I helped you set it up, remember?”

“Well, _that’s_ the solution to your problems!” Honeydew continues, puffing his chest out with pride. “I can help set you and Sjin up together, and then Sjin would realize he doesn’t have to leave and can stay with you until you grow old together!”

Sips tries to hide the smile forming on his face at the idea of him and Sjin staying together until they’re two old men who can’t even get out of bed, but it’s no use. Instead, he just turns his head and replies, “Why not?”

* * *

 

 

 

 

**DO: Go out and do something fun that will leave a good impression on both you and your loved one in cases where they have to leave. This will make them want to stay with you and, of course, let go of their life aspirations just for you; cue running into the sunset together!**

**DON’T: Let your loved one go because following their dreams is more important to you than them staying with you. That’s just dumb.**

It took them a while to decide what they should do for the date, as Honeydew made the mistake of asking Sips what types of outings they usually do together, and what he thinks will make a lasting impression on Sjin. Sips had just smiled devilishly, heading towards the sorting level and rummaging through the crystal chests until he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a stack of uranium, “I think that a picnic on top of the rubble and ruins of Rythian’s base after we nuke it sounds pretty romantic and mind-blowing. What do you say?”

Honeydew snatched the uranium away from him. “Uh, picnic… picnic sounds good. We’ll work out the rest.” _Note to self: Never ask Sips for any suggestions. Ever._

Sips pouted.

Here they are now, with Honeydew disguised as a hedge bush near the banana boat of Sjin’s Independent Water Park™ and Sips lounging near the giant dirt statue of Sjin and his, er, unmentionable spouting water into the already filthy pool.

“When is he going to get here?” Honeydew whispers, and Sips shushes him.

“We have this thing where whenever I’m late, he comes late the next time, and I missed about an hour of our last business meeting last-” Sips starts to explain in a hushed tone, but he can spy Sjin in the corner of his eye and he tries to make it seem like he wasn’t waiting for long. Or talking to a shrub. A little bit of both.

“Sips!” Sjin grins, a toothy smile playing at his lips as he approaches Sips. He sees the picnic blanket set up by the umbrella and lounge chair, and it only makes his grin wider. “Picnic this time, eh? What’s the occasion?”

“Do I really need a reason to hang out with my best bud?” Sips rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, and Honeydew kind of wishes that he brought the earpieces and microphones with him again, but he doesn’t know how he’d drag all the wiring and cable out this far. “Uh…”

“Best bud? You’ve never called me that before,” Sjin points out, giggling, and he takes Sips’s wrist and drags him to the checkerboard cloth laid out on the grass. “It’s nice out today, Sipsy. You’ve chosen a great day to go out for lunch!” He comments, poking Sips’s arm playfully.

“Yeah, yeah I did.” Sips relaxes, and he reaches for the basket to set out their food. (Steak sandwiches and melons, Sjin’s favorite - at least, that’s what Sips stressed.) “Truthfully, Sjin, I’d rather be at _home_ ,” he emphasizes the ‘home’ in hopes that Sjin would get the idea, “having lunch, but I know how much you like being outside and-”

“Is that Xephos?”

_Xephos? What is he doing out here?_

“Just say ‘hi’ and leave, just say ‘hi’ and leave,” Honeydew chants in a low voice, peering out of the leaves that concealed his face and eyeing the spaceman. Xephos looked like he was busy trying to get something, but still, he deactivates his ring to say hello to Sips and Sjin. “You can leave now, Xeph. Come on.”

“Hey, guys!” Xephos greets quickly, and it looks like he is planning to keep this visit short. “I’m just off to Pig Island really fast because I’ve left a couple of my tools there last time I had to get Honeydew his supply of pork.” He shudders at the reminder that he’s killed a ton of pigs in front of their offspring, but he’s hopping up into the air and twisting his ring before they know it.

“Wait, Xephos,” Sjin calls out, rooting Xephos to the spot as he stands up from the picnic blanket, but he accidentally trips over the basket and into Xephos’s arms. “Shit-”

“Woah, steady on!” Xephos holds him until Sjin can find his footing, and he soon grows uncomfortable when Sjin refuses to get off of him. If anything, he’s gripping onto Xephos even more - and uh, was that him prodding his biceps, or? - and the spaceman has to try and pry Sjin off of him.

“This is rather,” Sjin is all giggly from excitement, and Xephos is not alright with the way that Sjin’s breath is tickling his neck, “ _intimate._ ”

“Er, yeah,” Xephos admits, and Jesus Christ, did Sjin start lifting or something because he cannot get the guy off of his body at all. In the corner of his vision, he can see the figure of Sips looming closer, looking completely pissed. “It is. Uh, Sjin, could you probably, get off-”

There’s a loud smacking sound in his ears, and suddenly Xephos is free and also on the ground. He pulls his gaze away from his arms and his eyes widen in shock at the red mark on Sjin’s cheek, but more importantly, the tears in Sips’s eyes.

“Sjin!” Sips chokes out, “How could you- why would…” He can’t get the right words out before he’s bawling, or at least, Honeydew thinks he’s bawling because Sips’s hands are blocking his face and he’s running up the hill back to his base, probably.

Sjin doesn’t look disturbed at all, and is… is he sniggering to himself? Honeydew can’t really tell, because this is all happening so far from him and he can’t exactly move because of his disguise. Maybe he shouldn’t chosen something else other than a bush.

“Heh, bosses, what do you know?” Sjin comments after a pause of silence, helping Xephos back up to his feet. Unfortunately, he didn’t let go. Again.

“Sjin, what was that-”

“Oh, Xephos!” Lomadia calls from over the atrocious slides Sjin put together, making her way over to the two. “Lalna told me I’d find you somewhere near Pig Island and,” she pauses, noticing the close position between the two men. Lomadia’s lips are pursed, and her voice is unamused when she mentions, “It looks like I’ve been interrupting something. Sorry.”

“Lom!” Xephos tries to interject, and Sjin finally lets go of him. He scrambles to catch up with his girlfriend, voice continuously becoming more and more desperate, “Lom! Wait! I can explain!”

Honeydew stares at all the damage done within in a span of probably ten minutes, jaw slackened. _What the fuck just happened?_

* * *

 

It’s a good couple of days later when Honeydew Inc announces its ‘ _BIGGEST PARTY EVER_ ’ according to Honeydew, as a way to acknowledge the fact that the factory was complete, despite all factory protocols being finished a little over a month ago. It was a late celebration, yes, but a celebration none the less. They’ve been preparing and decorating the factory just for this night.

Everyone in Tektopia was invited, and thanks to the Jaffa Cake Factory being mutual in terms of miniscule internal (and external) wars, most of them were able to agree without hesitation. This was also the only time he’s ever gotten through to Sips and Sjin after the whole “breaking down and crying” scenario, and he hopes that they’re doing alright. Sips is going to be awfully lonely after Sjin leaves to become a farmer, Honeydew’s sure.

For the most part, the party is chill and fun as per-usual for Honeydinc parties, other than the unpleasant looks Lomadia and Xephos exchange from across the room. Xephos is a good coordinator, and Honeydew and Lalna know enough about how parties should be run that the three put together make a good team. Perhaps after this whole matchmaking service is over, he, Lalna, and Xephos could run a party planner department. Yeah, yeah, that sounds satisfactory.

Honeydew is maneuvering through the crowd to the bowl of punch at their buffet table when something catches his eye. Sips and Rythian looked awfully cozy, didn’t they? That’s weird. (He feels really bad when he tries to eavesdrop on their conversation, despite having done it many times before.)

“So, uh, I hear you’re out for my business partner.” A sip.

“Uh. Yeah. I guess. It doesn’t involve you, really, you weren’t there when he and Lalna blew up-”

Honeydew spits out his drink the second he sees it. Sips grabbed Rythian’s face, and planted a big smooch on the mage’s cheek. Everyone else in the party doesn’t seem to notice it, but there are two people who do.

One is Sjin, whose grip on his plastic cup is firm enough to break it open, and Honeydew guesses that’s the entire reason why Sips did it. And the other… oh God. _Why?_ Of all people?

Nilesy stomps on over to the two, and Rythian’s still sputtering and he can’t speak properly when the pool salesman roughly pulls Sips away from him. “Oi. What the hell do you think you’re doing, Sips?! I’ve… I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am right now, and you just _kiss him_?”

Sips smiles slyly. “Move it, buckaroo. Magic-boy here is into me.”

“Is… is that true? _Rythian?_ ” Nilesy’s desperately looking at Rythian for some sort of explanation, that maybe Sips had done it without consent, or maybe it was just a friendly sort of thing, but he’s still recovering from the shock and the wide-eyed expression is all that he can offer. Nilesy, however, takes this as Rythian not owning up to his real feelings on the subject, and maybe Rythian did like Sips, and he was just playing Nilesy.

Nilesy’s whole world collapses that very second.

Nilesy is speechless. All the adrenaline that was building up in him deflates, and he just looks at Rythian. The mage opens his mouth to try to explain himself, but Nilesy isn’t having any of it, and he just sneers in disgust and angrily leaves the building.

“Nilesy - wait, I…” Rythian finally gets his mouth to work properly, but it’s too late. He chases after him in a final attempt to redeem himself, though the second that he opens the door and the cold wind bites at his cheeks, there’s no sign of him. Nilesy’s gone.

Honeydew observed everything with his own two eyes. He can’t bring himself to blink.

_Fuck._

* * *

Honeydew thinks the worst part about everything is that it didn’t just stop right there. More relationships were ruined the more Sips and Sjin’s damage got out of hand, and he still has a good amount of complaints about his company and anonymous hate letters in his in-tray to go through, thank you very much. He couldn’t even get Xephos to speak to him anymore!

(Speaking of Xephos, it seems he’s gotten the attention of pretty much everyone in Tektopia, and they wouldn’t stop bugging him about whether he was busy to go out with them for dinner, or something.)

All the weird couples that have spawned after this incident confused the shit out of him - Zoeya, Benji, and Littlewood decided to take a break from doing whatever the hell they were doing and began a polyamorous relationship with each other and they _wouldn’t_ stop sending him postcards! He found Nilesy was in his hot tub more than once, and with Lalna, to boot!

Honeydew makes his daily trip to the mail perch by their shed, and he cringes at the sack entitled ‘TO: HONEYDEW.’ Who said this matchmaking business was a good idea, again, anyway?

* * *

 

There’s one more page in the document on his computer, last updated two hours ago. All that’s typed in there is:

 

 

 

 

**DO: Let people who want to be together work it out themselves.**

**DON’T: Create a matchmaking service after unknowingly setting two of your friends together. Just. Don’t.**

The sign that was staked onto the floor right in front of the entrance to his penthouse is now long gone, and the paperwork set by Jarvis’s cage have been ripped in half and are enjoying their time in the coke ovens a couple floors down.

Honeydew groans.

_Never again._

* * *

 

“You know, I didn’t expect that to work.” is the first sentence Sjin utters after the whole fiasco. Their giggle fests have long since died down, and they are now walking back to their compound, hand-in-hand. He absentmindedly thinks the whole “running off into the sunset” thing works well on the both of them.

“Jesus Christ, yeah. To think that they didn’t realize we’ve been together this whole time,” Sips sniggers, the corners of his lips tugging upwards as he muses, “It’s mostly thanks to your idea, though. Leaving to become a farmer, can you believe it?”

The warmth of Sjin’s hand leaves his, and the nervous laughter that escapes his boyfriend’s mouth doesn’t help his confusion at all. His voice is too high-strung and sing-song when he says, “About the whole “leaving Sipsco. to become a farmer” idea…”

“Sjin. Don’t tell me..."

_“Race you to the base!”  
_

**Author's Note:**

> hello, everybody! this is my secret santa present for sparklesstripeyjumpers on tumblr and i hope you enjoy! i put like, my blood, sweat, and tears (but mostly just free time) writing THIS MONSTER OF A ONE-SHOT AND ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS FOR YOU GUYS TO ENJOY THIS! it's a pretty simple concept based on the idea of "honeydew runs a matchmaking service and sips and sjin ruin everything" but it should flow pretty easily and make for a fun read. :) happy holidays, if you celebrate them!


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